Hugh Macfarlane, Author at align.me

A market strategy example: why too much demand is bad

Here is a great go to market strategy example of why crude assumptions are dangerous. Brand / Demand / Enablement need a balance, and it changes over time. B2B marketers seem to be dragged between two extremes at the whim of Sales: We're either just doing branding 'stuff' or we're supposed to focus on leads. So which should it be? Today we'll use a go to market strategy example to show why too much demand is just as bad as too little, and how to get the balance right. Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Product Marketing Strategy and why 50% of a solution is 100% of a mistake

You sell what you are good at. The market has taught you what is attractive, and what is not. So you should gear up production and sell like crazy, right? Well, no. The product marketing strategy you have now will not be the right strategy for the next phase of the market. It is rare that a product marketing strategy deliberately only solves a half of the client's problem. But accidentally solving only half of their problem, or meeting only 50% of their need, is 100% wrong 20% of the time. There are five phases in any READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

New Sales & Marketing Strategy and Why Old Ways Fail

Your old strategy for sales and marketing just won't work. And neither will your next one, or the one after that. Sure they will work for a while, and then they won't. What's going on? Buyers change as their own familiarity with a new innovation changes. Put differently, when a new idea is put to the market, it will appeal to a certain segment of the market. Then a different segment, then a different segment again. So, should your strategy for sales and marketing be based on the industries these segments operate in? No, absolutely not. Then READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How do you sell to the C-Suite? You don’t

It’s a question that comes up a lot, and sometimes we even ask ourselves: How should you approach the c-suite? How do you get the attention and time of that elusive senior person who you need to get onside early and who, ultimately, can approve your deal? Often, the answer is: you don’t. And you shouldn’t. Let me show you why. Before we sell, we solve – so who is having the problem? Often the person who can approve the deal is not the person who actually has the problem that the deal is going to READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How to get your team to buy in to your problem choice

In the wonderful African proverb, we are reminded that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. In this week's show, we'll explore how to get the whole tribe to buy in to your Sales and Marketing plan and to join you on your journey. Although the focus is on problem choice, the approach holds true for all decision making. Want to receive more blogs like this? Subscribe to our twice weekly B2B marketing insights! Get your copy of our 2014 Sales and Marketing Alignment Report Unless you are READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Your Marketing is probably helping your competitors more than you

Troubling the market about the wrong problem may actually help your competitor more than it helps you. Businesses spend money to fix problems or to avoid problems in the future, therefore buyers want a solution to meet their needs and perceived problem. If they believe that they have a problem that a competitor solves better than you do, they will go with your competitor. You may try to convince them that they actually need the solution that you offer but that will be very hard work and low yield. Instead, it is best to change their READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy, Tactics|

Don’t measure Sales or B2B Marketing on revenue

Revenue targets have nothing to do with the targets you want to set for Sales and Marketing. So, how do you figure out your Sales and Marketing targets? Firstly, you need to know the value of new business that you need Sales and Maketing to generate for you, you also need to know the average size of each deal. Secondly, you need to figure out how many sales need to occur over a specfic time period in order to determine how much revenue you actually need Sales and Marketing to generate. In this video blog, Hugh helps to READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

Tactics to improve conversion and dominate your market

If you can't make your funnel flow faster, can you lose fewer buyers throughout their journey? We've argued on recent blogs why you can't speed up your buyer just because you have quotas to meet, but that you can improve your conversion rates. We had a ton of email requests for specific tactics. So this week we're making a series of specific tactical recommendations to improve your conversion rates throughout the funnel. Want to receive more content like this? Subscribe to our monthly B2B marketing blog!

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales, Tactics|

How we produce our weekly video B2B Marketing blog

If you are committed to a regular schedule of blogging, you'll know that the production needs to be efficient or the process can quickly become unaffordable. Video is a super engaging medium for blogging, but might appear unaffordable at first glance. Great corporate videos on your web site deserve a high quality production, but frequent video blogs need 'good enough' production only. At align.me, we're a long way from the efficiency we think we can achieve, but have mastered the art of good-enough quality video blog production and are pleased to let you under the covers READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics, Velocity|

How to calculate your sales CR, and why speed kills

In last week's show, we offered 10 steps for calculating sales conversion rate. We also promised to show you why lag is death. In English, why a buyer who has taken longer than normal is unlikely to buy from you at all. So does that mean there is merit in using assertive marketing and sales techniques to speed them up? We all want to speed our funnel up. In a recession like the GFC, sales cycles typically blow out, meaning buyers are taking longer than normal to buy. This could be so - they might genuinely be READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Sales|

About Hugh Macfarlane